I was a pretty weird kid, but a lot of those stories aren't funny-weird as much as signs of impending emotional disturbances.

My best friend went to see the Phantom of the Opera with her family when we were about 7, and she got the CD and the songbook, and of course that was the focus of all our Barbie play after that. Nothing would do but I had to go see it, too, and that was all I asked for for my birthday that year. I saw it twice that…

I once cried in a store until my mother bought me a dress because I had been playing with the dress on the rack like it was another kid, and leaving it behind felt like leaving a friend behind. And I hated wearing dresses, so that was a WEIRD thing for me to do.

If I had to guess, I'd bet it's because it looks like you have to heat the material flat, THEN form it into a roll, then put it in your hair. I'd imagine the time you spend futzing with it is lessening its ability to actually heat-curl your hair.

That or, more hopefully in my case, that you can kind of gain by osmosis the characteristics of your favorite family member. It's literally the only chance I have to remain sane/a good person. In nature vs. nurture, I don't know which is more important, but I know which one I HOPE wins out.

My dad is my dad and I look just like him... but I'm adopted. It's weird. I know many members of my birth family, and they're all short and tend towards heaviness, while my dad and I are the only ones who are tall and thin with prominent features.

Done well, it can be more beautiful and entertaining than the thing on which it is based...

I just don't get how all her portraits can be so consistent - like, look at that nose, it's SO prominent and so much the same - but then in her death mask she has a dainty little chiseled thing. I even looked up another picture of that same mask, and it's just tiny from any angle.

Considering that the French hood was popularly fashionable in England for many, many years after Anne's death, and common in court portraits, I'm not sure this hypothesis holds much water. Catherine Howard's own court portrait by Holbein shows her wearing a French hood, at that could've been painted within 4 years of…

I wish I could still edit this, it's a gable hood and that's literally why it doesn't expose her hair - still, weird that she wouldn't be wearing the headdress she was responsible for popularizing in England in either of the contemporary portraits of her.

I agree that the portrait seems to match the accounts, although I will say I was surprised that unlike the more famous portraits from later artists, this one doesn't show the front of her hair exposed by her French hood - as I'm sure you're aware, Anne's penchant for leaving parts of her hair visible in public was one…

Jodie is lovely, but she has such a tiny nose. I think Mary looks more like Helen Hunt, one of the few women in Hollywood who held on to their substantial nose for at least a while.

She has my nose and my height, and let me tell you, it's not always a picnic to carry those around in THESE times, so whether it was flattery or not I'm kind of happy for her. I was on a bus tour in Scotland where the tour guide made some remark about the "short, ugly" English queen killing the "tall, lovely" Mary of…

The only time I've been to church in the last 20 years (barring required "chapel" services at my parochial elementary and high schools) was taking the chance to go to services at St. Peter ad Vincula, the church in the Tower of London where Anne Boleyn is buried. I tend not to be "obsessed" with anything really, but I…

The "some reason" you mention is that we are speaking English. In those examples, those aren't "Americanized" versions of place names, they're the English place names. What, you think people from Glasgow are practicing their rolled r's so that they can show off they've been to Rome for the holiday? I mean, probably,…

Right, which is why I'm not responding at all in any sense to anything having to do with Paris, but to the idea that being able to buy a microwave burrito at 3AM is "overrated".

You say this, but have you ever lived somewhere long-term where this wasn't the case?

What it comes down to for me is, are you saying this for me or are you saying this for you? Like, who is this idea of turning the other cheek supposed to help?

I am really glad you posted that, because from that link I learned that in Europe they often eat the whole scallop, not just the shell muscle, which means there is a new way to eat my favorite food that I've never tried before. I will be on the next plane to Europe, and when I am done, there will be nary a scallop to…

This happens to me. I usually troll my Gawker sites every evening, but sometimes things like this come up and I eventually get too hyper with rage to sleep.